Gas station Little Italy, looking back

Looking back on some of my old paintings, this one was from an interesting time, 2019 leading up to 2020 when the global pandemic hit. Some back story on why I did this painting, it was an idea I got from Hiroshige's series called 'The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō'. Hiroshige was a Japanese illustrator and print designer who was active throughout the middle of the 19th century. During this time, Japan had opened up to tourism, which resulted in Japanese culture reaching Europe in a big way, that was called Japanification. The idea was that Japanese art, music, theater, crafts, poetry and ideas flowed into Europe and even into North America. The Dutch painter Van Gogh came across a collection of Japanese prints which were popular among impressionist painters, Monet had quite a collection too. Van Gogh's plan was to sell them at a profit but he was a lousy business man and ended up copying them and including them in his art. So to make a long and winding story short, I discovered Hiroshige's prints via a book on Van Gogh acquired at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam where Cilei and I visited in 2018. And back to the painting, my initial thought was to paint 57 gas stations in Montreal, but it turns out gas stations are pretty boring to paint although I got a few good paintings. Instead, I ended up doing the 68 stations of the Montreal Metro system, a series completed over 2020 to 2021 or so. In fact, I keep painting scenes of the Montreal metro when I get the chance. 

Gas station Little Italy, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2019

Bike path old Cadillac

Thinking I had done enough painting for one weekend I stopped at the Decarie overpass and made a few more. This one shows the Maisonneuve bike path with its warning stanchion dividers, and a low sun creating monochrome tones and glaring highlights. I left part of the road white to increase the glare effect. 

Backlit bike path, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

And an old classic Cadillac by the looks of the emblem, about a boat-length long, parked at the auto shop. It seemed rather difficult to paint this, and I used the two inch round for added challenge. It turned out better than I hoped, the chrome grill is neat. If its still there I can try and drop by and paint it again, although the forecast is for clouds and rain on and off the next while. After a search, it may have been a 1950 series 61 coupe Cadillac, or similar. 

Cadillac study, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

 

Half path to nowhere

Going back to 2020, the city was building a bike path under autoroute 15 in Verdun, direction point st Charles. It was closed all that time although one day the fence was open a bit and I rode in to find a half-finished path to nowhere in particular. Since then, they removed the barriers and its free to ride on, so today I explored it a bit on a cool but blue-sky day. In this scene, I am looking back towards the authroute after passing underneath. 

Half path under autoroute 10, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Vast piles of gravel and earth adorn the landscape, totally deserted. It looks as if they are planning a massive infrastructure, probably a park/recreation area. There is an enormous swath of land here, likely landfill from last century. 

Hills city pylons, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

At the end of the line, the path turns and ends at where autoroute 10 peels off along the river-side. In the background are the elevated train on the left, and part of the Cinema production buildings on the right. It looks as if they are planning to route the autoroute 10 traffic to a new road slightly to the north, in order to open up the rest of the river front. If they succeed, it will eventually hook up with Port Montreal and provide a continuous bike path. 

End of line, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Exact same spot looking due south east, and there are massive condo towers over on what must be st Lambert. That is the st Lawrence river at the bottom of the painting. When painting such buildings, I prefer to embellish the colours and patterns using variations of magenta and blue-green. 

Condo towers river, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026 

 

Red green blue colours where they are

Here are the last few paintings from yesterday, done in Point st Charles, starting with a scene of the train depot and its prominent storage silos. This place allows cargo to be off-loaded and sorted for distribution. As usual, there were pylons along the street. 

Silos pylons, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

A scene looking up the street along the stacked containers and traffic. The containers were yellow, red and navy blue along with a few orange ones. For a painting like this its best to avoid too much accuracy and just try to get general shapes and colours down on the paper. 

Containers cars, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Finally, this bright red building, which I believe is a retail store, had a red car, and prominent tree, almost black against the sky, giving a Halloween feel to the scene. So I made my initials creepy on this one, and on the first painting of the blog where my initials are like dripping blood... boo!

Red house red car, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026 

Gentrifying neighborhoods

Point st Charles is one of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in Montreal, located east of Verdun and in between highways, the river, and the canal. Once a residential-industrial blended neighborhood, the old factories and warehouses are being razed one by one and replaced with condominiums and retail. In this scene on st Patrick street, I found a neat warehouse/building center, still open for business. It made for an interesting composition with contrasting angles and depth elements. 

Green wall construction center, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

A small park called Parc des Chaudronniers is nestled between buildings. Its surrounded by a vast empty gravel lot which has the look of something destined to be developed. It was a great place to stand with my bike and paint yesterday on a nice, cool fall day. In the background, is a newly built condominium with its yellowish insulation layer still showing before the bricks are set. 

Empty lot new condo, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Same spot looking east, you see multiple building structures with a neat variety of textures and colours. Bottom left was a challenging dark-yellow with aluminum siding, behind were white-washed red brick, then an exposed-wood panelling wall in the background. To the right was a tall stainless steel or aluminum vat connected by piping to the buildings. 

Old textures and vat, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

And looking to the west, a towering wall of glass condos, the traffic on st Patrick, and part of the empty lot on the bottom left, with some graffiti on the wall. I hope the city can turn this empty lot into a park to extend the existing Chaudronniers park, and I have a feeling they will. In other areas, the city also reserved park space, so as to avoid an unbroken block of Condos in one area. 

Glass walls empty lot, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026 

 

Halloween end of October fall colours

Taking a nice bike ride down the Lachine canal path, albeit a chilly windy and cool day, I made some paintings of fall colours and various industrial scenes. Here, I featured colourful red and yellow foliage with a rusty train bridge in the background and Lachine canal running through the middle. I quite enjoyed painting this one, I dare say I had fun!

Warm foliage drained canal, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

Three scenes in one, we have stacks of things in an auto shop parking lot, an electrical station in the background with the highway, and one of the Verdun aqueduct towers visible behind the tree. With the paint drying slowly today, I made several paintings successively for each location. Start one, let it dry while starting another, then go back to the first one. 

Stacks of stuff electrical station, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

The side of the auto shop, which backs onto st Patrick, has a large ZO (by ZONEK), which I changed to PJD instead. It was a neat textural challenge, and I had all the same colours on my palette that ZONEK must have had in their spray paint cans. 

PJS colour wall, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026

 

And a painting of the drained canal with train bridge. Usually this whole scene is under water, so it was neat to see what it looks like when drained. It was such a good place to stand I made all these paintings from the same spot, with decent sun, although a fierce wind barreling along the canal. 

Train drain, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, October 2026 

Frosty tree, thoughts on winter water

Yes a winter painting! But this one is from 30 years ago believe it or not, in fact, its one of the first winter paintings I ever made. The scene was in London Ontario at the main park downtown on a day with -10℃, which I wrote on the backs of one of these paintings. As it cools off, and luckily I did not need salt in the water for today's paintings although I brought some with me just in case, maybe its time to remember how to paint in the winter. I typically add salt, around 150g per 1L of water is good for -10℃, and 300g per L is good for -20℃. Usually I add 100g to 0.5L which fits in my container. Theoretically, salt water will not freeze down to -21℃ after which it will turn slushy and icy which I knew from experience too. Propylene is perhaps another option, at 60% propylene glycol the water wont freeze down to about -50°C, and a 50% solution will freeze around -30°C. Back in time, I did not know these things, and brought some warm water along with me to make winter paintings, but as you can easily see in the example above, ice crystals formed and it was difficult to finish the painting properly. Maybe if it gets cold again this winter I will try the propylene glycol trick. 

Frosty tree, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 1996